Adherents.com: Religious Groups in Literature

34,420 citations from literature (mostly science fiction and fantasy) referring to real churches, religious groups, tribes, etc. [This database is for literary research only. It is not intended as a source of information about religion.]

Heaven's Gate, continued...

Group

Where

Year

Source

Quote/Notes

Heaven's Gate

galaxy

2733

Simmons, Dan. Hyperion. New York: Doubleday (1989); pg. 187.

"and dispatched me on a trip to the Rifkin Atmosphereic Protectorate on Heaven's Gate, a minor world circling the star Vega... Notes for a sketch of Heaven's Gate... Twenty million of these doomed schmucks, crowded into slums overflowing an island smaller than my family's west lawn on Old Earth, all of them fighting to breath the only breathable air on a world where the standard is to inhale and die... Heaven's Gate: my new home... [ "Heaven's Gate " here is the name of a planet, and does not appear to have any connection to the suicide cult in California of the 1990s.]

Heaven's Gate

galaxy

3099

Simmons, Dan. Endymion. New York: Bantam (1996); pg. 255.

"They are resurrected in a creche on Heaven's Gate, a once-miserable world terraformed to shade trees and comfort in the days of the Web, not largely fallen back to boiling mud, pestilent swamps... the Old Earth System--less than twelve light-years from TC2, now just a little more than eight from Heaven's Gate... " [More.]

"'Oh, right. It wasn't a vision. You had an epiphany. So did the woman in The Globe last week who saw the Virgin Mary on her refrigerator. So did the Heaven's Gate people. Are you telling me they're not crazy. "

"She had said nothing about the fact that her husband had been head goon for the mold-scrubbers union on Heaven's Gate before political patronage had promoted him to Sol Draconi... " [Referring to a planet, not the California group named 'Heaven's Gate. See also pg. 44, 116, 154-155, 261-262, 313, 341, 347, etc.]

[Detailed summary of Heaven's Gate history, page 159-162.] Pg. 162: "As to the evident absurdities of the Heaven's Gate faith, no less a religious authority than Augustine declared that he believed in Christianity precisely because it was absurd. And when two members of the cult who had missed their apotheosis appeared on Sixty Minutes on that same Easter evening, they had no more intellectual difficulty shrugging away the silliness of the cult's mythology than Joseph Campbell, and most liberal Protestant theologians, have in shrugging away whatever seems merely mythological in Christianity. What is more pertinent than the literal truth, from a would-be suicide's point of view, is the cost-benefit analysis. Let us assume that the thirty nine believers were not, in the event, taken up by aliens approaching Earth in the shadow of the Hale-Bopp comet. What did they stand to gain--beyond what Hamlet called a consummation devoutly to be wished? "

[Non-fiction.] "Star Trek would say that if you can work out a resolution that compromises neither your religious nor your ethical beliefs, then by all means do so. By the end of 'Accession,' we're left with the impression that Sisko, despite his newfound acceptance of Bajoranism, will temper his spiritual leadership with reason. However, if your religious leaders push the issue and demand strict, uncontested allegiance to their teachings, then reason must assert itself--otherwise, as we know from our own experience, the consequences can be tragic. The mass suicides of the People's Temple worshipers in 1978, as well as those of the Heaven's Gate cult in 1997, came about because of unquestioned adherence... "; [Footnote:] "There was an unfortunate link to Star Trek in the Heaven's Gate tragedy. One of the cult members was Donald Nichols, the brother of Nichelle Nichols, Lieutenant Uhura on the Original Series. "

[Non-fiction.] "Still, despite his [Rodenberry's] overall contempt for religious sects and unreasoned adherence to their teachings, one suspects Rodenberry would have been very saddened by the Heaven's gate tragedy (which, ironically, occurred only about a year after the day 'Accession' was first broadcast). Though by all accounts, the cult members were avid viewers of Trek, their final action clearly flew in the face of its creator's underlying message: that only with critical thinking can we solve the problems facing us. "

Roberto's mother: "You lie, Castro. You are not in my husband's employ. "; Castro: "Technically, no. I serve the Hellfire Club. But Senhor DaCosta wishes to exploit the natural wealth of this hidden land. My job is to ensure that wish is granted. The Senhor he loves you, madame. He would never order your death. But this is a lonely, dangerous country. Accidents happen. "

Illyana's thoughts: "The woman who runs this school--Emma Frost--is the White Queen of the Hellfire Club... a secret society whose goal is to rule the world. So strange--she and her comrades are fabulously wealthy... one would think they'd be content with that. But power is an addictive drug... " [Other refs., not in DB. Emma Frost and the Hellfire Club are the villains in this issue.]

White Queen: "Welcome, dear children, to my parlor. I am the White Queen! From this moment, your lives belong to the Hellfire Club. " [Many other refs. to the Hellfire Club throughout story. The White Queen and the Hellfire Club are the featured villains in the DB.]

White Queen's thoughts, about Empath: "Arrogant pup! He must know I'm reading his thoughts--yet he isn't afraid, confident that his empathic power shield his innermost secrets from my mindscans. He's challenging me to prove him wrong. His ambition and power make him dangerous--but they also make him a perfect candidate for the Hellfire Club, provided he doesn't prompt me to kill him first. " [Also, pg. 5-6, etc.]

"Emma Frost--scion of New England merchant aristocracy, whose ancestors fought in the Revolution and sailed clipper ships to the far corners of the Earth. She is a mutant--a telepath, much like Xavier--and as the White Queen, a ruling member of the infamous Hellfire Club. The goal of its secret Inner Circle is power, pure and simple. This cabal seeks to rule the world and views super powered mutants as a primary means to that end. So in addition to her normal students are a very special few, analogous to Xavier's New Mutants, known as the Hellions. "

Pg. 11: White Queen's thoughts: "Such a modest, moral child [Rahne] . . . yet within her burns a fierce passion . . . that places her closer in spirit to the Hellfire Club than she--or Xavier--ever dreamed. "; Pg. 22: White Queen's thoughts: "Who should face him [Magneto]: The Hellfire Club's Inner Circle? My mercenaries? My students? The Hellions are not ready and this would prove too severe a test of the New Mutants' loyalties. My troops would be massacred. And summoning my fellow lords of Hellfire would mean an unacceptable--possibly irredeemable--loss of status. I have a better idea. " [She arranges for the Avengers to be called in.]

Emma looked up in surprise to see the young Hellion sitting with her on another slat of the geodesic structure.

'That was what you were talking about,' Jetstream said. 'The Hellfire Club. On the outside it was an exclusive club for the wealthiest people in the world. On the inside were rich mutants who wanted to rule the world.'

'People like me,' the White Queen said.

'That's right,' said Jetstream.

'And when the world thought we sat around playing whist and held audiences for aspiring young politicians, what we really did was scour the world for talented young mutants to put in positions of potential power & authority. We would train them just enough to make them vaguely aware of their powers, and we would effectively brainwash them in favor of the long-term goal of gathering... a worldwide network of powerful but naive mutants who answered only to use.' "

Pg. 178: "Suddenly Emma... stood in the walnut-paneled drawing room on the fourth floor of the Hellfire Club's Fifth Avenue headquarters. A fire crackled in the hearth. Out the window, she could see a Congressman's car and driver waiting for him. Above she could see the clouds gathering... "; Pg. 181: "'Would you like to hear what it will mean to be a member of this organization, gentlemen?' she finally asked.

No, they both meant to say but said, 'Yes, ma'am.'

She spoke imperiously and paced the room as she spoke:

'You will renounce any country or potentate or religion of family to which you have ever borne allegiance. You will renounce any personal rights or aspirations that do not also include the community of mutantkind at large. You will submit to a rigorous daily schedule of training and study that will last through the remainder of your childhood and well into your adulthood--should you live to adulthood...' " [Other Hellfire Club refs., not in DB.]

White Queen (to Magneto): "I am willing to admit them [the New Mutants] to my school and teach them as Xavier would. I give my word not to pressure them to join the Hellfire Club. I will simply remove their pain and give them the opportunity they deserve to enjoy a normal life. Is that so awful? "; Magneto: "It would be an abomination. "

Selene: "Such loyalty, von Roehm, is most welcome. I require a residence, one that will allow me both to exercise my powers in safety and bring certain... plans to their fruition--preferably one which provides access to wealth and influence. "; von Roehm: "I believe I have the ideal solution. It is called the Hellfire Club. "; "The admission requirements are simplicity itself: One must be phenomenally, almost impossibly rich. "

"A very few, very select members [of the Hellfire Club] are invited to join the secret Inner Circle, headed by the club's billionaire industrialist Sebastian Shaw. The latest such is Sunspot's father, Emmanuel DaCosta. "; Emmanuel DaCosta: "I feel foolish dressed like this, Sebastian. "; Shaw: "Don't, my friend. Our costumes signify our abandonment of the modern age--with its cloying ethics and bourgeoisie mercantile principles, where society is bent on protecting people from themselves at any costs--for a far simpler one... where a man was limited solely by the scope of his imagination, his ambition, his daring, and bound only by his own personal sense of honor. Society--the common herd--means nothing. The individual all. This is your last chance for second thoughts, Emmanuel. Once you cross this rubicon, you can never turn back. "; Emmanuel DaCosta: "I'm ready. "; Shaw: "Splendid. I look forward to your initiation. "

Pg. 1: Sebastian Shaw: "My lords, ladies and gentlemen of the Hellfire Club, allow me to present our newest candidates for admission into our sacred Inner Circle: Emmanuel DaCosta... and a potential Black Queen, the Lady Selene! "; Pg. 2: "Like us, they have no liking for the modern world. Nor for our place in it. We were born to rule--our power and wealth are eloquent testimony to our fitness in that regard--and through the Inner Circle, we shall! As chairman of both Club and Circle, I, Sebastian Shaw, offer the cup of fellowship! To drink from it forges bonds--both material and spiritual--that can never be broken. " [They drink.] "It is done! Bid them welcome, brethren! May they prosper in our company... as we shall no doubt do in theirs! " [More, pg. 3.]

Pg. 4: "Emma Frost herself is a mutant--a telepath, White Queen of the infamous Hellfire Club. "; Pg. 6: Emma's thoughts: "To heal them [the New Mutants], I telepathically modified their memories of that confrontation. I thought that procedure completely successful, the children wholly cured. Ready to be molded into prime assets of the Hellfire Club. "

[Doug Ramsey tells Kitty that he's received a scholarship to study at Massachusetts Academy, but Kitty is alarmed, thinking about how that school is actually run by the Hellfire Club, the X-Men's deadliest enemies.]

"She's [Illyana] a mutant, too, with the power to teleport through both space and time. One jaunt took the pair of us a year into the future... where we discovered that our teammates--my friends--had joined the Hellions, the novice team run by the Prof's arch-enemies, the Hellfire Club. The trouble is, did we see what will be, or what might? either way, what do we do about it? "

[Magneto has just introduced himself as the new headmaster of Xavier's school.] Doug: "But hey, Bobby, look on the bright side--this could be your perfect chance to join your dad... as a member of the Hellfire Club. "; Roberto: "What are you saying, Ramsey?! You dare imply I would betray my friends--the team?!! "; Doug: "Cool out, willya! " I was only joking! "; Sam: "It was in lousy taste, Doug. You should know better. "

"Roberto... but also, I suspect, deeply troubled. The girl he loved, Juliana Sandoval, was slain saving his life. And lately, his father--whom Roberto idolized--joined the ranks of the Hellfire Club, the very people responsible for the young lady's death. the resultant estrangement between father and son is bitter... "

Danielle's thoughts: "Darn! I can't stop thinking about the [New] Mutants. I'm free. They're not. The White Queen--and that rotten Hellfire Club she belongs to--are anathema to everything Professor Xavier's School stands for. Those creeps couldn't care less about mutants as people. We're tools to them--commodities--to be bought, sold, used. Thrown away. The same attitude--the same arrogance and greed--that slaughtered the buffalo and destroyed the Human Beings [Cheyenne]. All the Indian nations. "

"All these arrangements were so magnificent to Yuli that he could not see their meanness.

It took Yuli little time to find how closely the people were governed. They expressed no surprise in a system to which they had been born; but Yuli, accustomed to open spaces and the easily comprehended law of survival, was astonished at the way in which every movement was circumscribed. yet they thought themselves uniquely privileged.

With his legitimately acquired stock of skins, Yuli planned to purchase a stall next to Kyale, and set up shop. He discovered that there were many regulations that forbade anything so simple. Nor could he trade without a stall--unless he had a special license--and for that he would have to ahve been born a member of a hawkers' guild. He needed a guild, an apprenticship, and certain qualifications--a kind of exam--that only the priesthood could offer. He also needed a two-part certificate from the militia, together with insurance and references. "

Helliconian religion*

Helliconia

4000

Aldiss, Brian. Helliconia Spring. New York: Atheneum (1982); pg. 27.

"All these arrangements were so magnificent to Yuli that he could not see their meanness.

It took Yuli little time to find how closely the people were governed. They expressed no surprise in a system to which they had been born; but Yuli, accustomed to open spaces & the easily comprehended law of survival, was astonished at the way in which every movement was circumscribed. yet they thought themselves uniquely privileged.

With his legitimately acquired stock of skins, Yuli planned to purchase a stall next to Kyale, & set up shop. He discovered that there were many regulations that forbade anything so simple. Nor could he trade without a stall--unless he had a special license--& for that he would have to have been born a member of a hawkers' guild. He needed a guild, an apprenticeship, & certain qualifications--a kind of exam--that only the priesthood could offer. He also needed a two-part certificate from the militia [&] insurance & references. "

Helliconian religion*

Helliconia

4000

Aldiss, Brian. Helliconia Spring. New York: Atheneum (1982); pg. 27.

"Nor would he be able to trade until he owned a living. Yet he could not possess the room Tusca had rented for him until he was fully accredited with the militia. He was unable to meet even the most elementary qualifications: a belief in Akha and a proof of regular sacrifices to the god.

'It's simple. First you, as a savage, must attend a priest.' That was the dictum of a sharp-faced militia captain before whom Yuli had to appear. He confronted Yuli in a little stone room, the balcony of which was a metre or so above one of Market's terraces, and from which one might survey the whole animated scene.

The captain wore a floor-length cloak of black and white over the customary skins. On his head he wore a bronze helmet displaying the holy symbol of Akha, a kind of two-spoked wheel. His hide boots came halfway up his calf. Behind him stood a phagor, a black and white woven band tied around its hairy white brow. "

Helliconian religion*

Helliconia

4000

Aldiss, Brian. Helliconia Spring. New York: Atheneum (1982); pg. 28.

"The interview with the captain was dispiriting, an dworse was to come. He cul not live unless he obeyed the rules, and they appeared interminable; there was nothing for it--as Kyale impressed upon him-but to conform. To be a citizen of Pannoval, you had to think and feel like a Pannovalian.

So he was consigned to attend the priest in the alley of livings where he had his room. This entailed numerous sessions at which he was taught a ritualised history of Pannoval ('born from Great Akha's shadow on the eternal snows . . .') and forced to learn many of the scriptures by heart. He also had to do whatever Sataal, the priest, told him to do, including the running of many tedious errands, for Sataal was lazy. It was no great consolation to Yuli to find that the children of Pannoval went through similar courses of instruction at an early age. "

Helliconian religion*

Helliconia

4000

Aldiss, Brian. Helliconia Spring. New York: Atheneum (1982); pg. 28.

"Sataal was a solidly built man, pale of face, small of ear, heavy of hand. His head was shaven, his beard plaited, in the manner of many priests of his order. There were twists of white in the plaits. He wore a knee-length smock of black and white. His face was deeply pocked. It took Yuli some while to realise that, despite the white hairs, Sataal was not past middle age, being only in his late teens. Yet he walked in a round-shouldered way suggesting both age and piety.

When he addressed Yuli, Sataal spoke always kindly but remotely, keeping a gulf between them. Yuli was reassured by the man's attitude, which seemed to say, This is your job and mine, but I shall not complicate it by probing into what your inner feelings are. So Yuli kept quiet, applying himself to the talk of learning all the necessary fustian verses. "

Helliconian religion*

Helliconia

4000

Aldiss, Brian. Helliconia Spring. New York: Atheneum (1982); pg. 29.

"Every night, she lay awake and thought of him, concealed in one of those terrifying places in the Holies, guarded by phagors, and wondered if she would ever see him again.

'The milita and the priests are so unusthere,' Yuli whispered to her. 'My people have little to live on in the wilds, but all are equal, one iwth another, in the face of the cold.'

After a pause, Tusca said, 'There are people in Pannoval, women as well as men, who do not learn the scriptures and thikn to overthrow those who rule. Yet without our rulers, we should be destroyed by Akha.'

Yuli peered at the outline of her face through the dark. 'And do you think that Usilk was taken . . . because he wanted to overthrow the rulers?'

In a low voice she replied, holding tightly to his hand, 'You must not ask such questions or you'll meet trouble. Usilk was always rebellious--yes, perhaps he got among the wrong people. . . .' "

Helliconian religion*

Helliconia

4000

Aldiss, Brian. Helliconia Spring. New York: Atheneum (1982); pg. 30.

"The days followed one another peacefully. Yuli became impressed with the never varying patience of Sataal, and began disliking his instruction periods less. Even away from the priest, he thought about his teaching. All was fresh and curiously exciting. Sataal had told him that certain priests, who undertook to fast, were able to communicate with the dead, or even with personages in history; Yuli had never heard of such things, but hesitated to call them nonsense. "

Helliconian religion*

Helliconia

4000

Aldiss, Brian. Helliconia Spring. New York: Atheneum (1982); pg. 30.

"He took to roving alone through the suburbs of the city, until its thick shadows took on for him colours of familiarity. He listened to people, who often talked of religion, or to the sayers who spoke at street corners, who often laced their stories with religion.

Religion was the romance of the darkness, as terror had been of the Barriers, where tribal drums warded off devils. Slowly, Yuli began to perceive in religious talk not a vacuum but a core of truth: the way in which people lived and died had to be explained. Only savages needed no explanation. The perception was like finding an animal's trail in the snow. "

Helliconian religion*

Helliconia

4000

Aldiss, Brian. Helliconia Spring. New York: Atheneum (1982); pg. 30.

"Once he was in a malodorous part of Prayn, where human scumble was poured into long trenches on which the noctiferous crops grew. Here, the people were pretty tough, as the saying had it. A man with short-cropped free-flowing hair, and therefore neither a priest nor a sayer, ran up and jumbled onto a scumble barrow.

'Friends,' he said, standing before them. 'Listen to me for a moment, will you? Just stop your labours and hear what I have to say. I speak not for myself but for the great Akha, whose spirit moves inside me. I have to speak for him although I put my life in danger, for the priests distort Akha's words for their own purposes.'

People stopped to listen. Two tried to make a joke at the young man's expense, but the others stood in submissive interest, Yuli included. "

Helliconian religion*

Helliconia

4000

Aldiss, Brian. Helliconia Spring. New York: Atheneum (1982); pg. 31.

"'My name is Naab.Remember what I say. We too have a role in the great war between Sky and Earth. I will be back to speak if I can--speak my message to all Pannoval. Reform, reform!--before it is too late . . .' As he jumped down, there was a surge among the crowd that had gathered. A great tethered phagor rushed forward, with a soldier at the other end of his leash. It reached forward and grabbed Naab's arm with its powerful horned hands. He gave a cry of pain, but a hairy white arm went around his throat and he was led away in the direction of Market and the Holies.

'He shouldn't have said such things,' a grey man muttered, as the crowd dispersed.

Yuli followed the man on impulse, and grasped his sleeve.

'The man Naab said nothing against Akha--why should the militia take him away?' "

Helliconian religion*

Helliconia

4000

Aldiss, Brian. Helliconia Spring. New York: Atheneum (1982); pg. 32.

"Yet alongside the voice of one longing to enslave himself was another, speaking simultaneously in a more calculating manner. It said, 'The people of Pannoval must understand a great truth which it would be useful to get to comprehend by following Akha.'

He was astonished at the confusion within himself, a ware that did not lessen as they entered the chamber and more of the stone god was revealed. Naab had said, 'Humans have a role in the war between Sky and Earth.' Now he could feel that war alive within him. "

Helliconian religion*

Helliconia

4000

Aldiss, Brian. Helliconia Spring. New York: Atheneum (1982); pg. 86.

"Steam rose from both groups, to be snatched away by the breeze. Their coats gleamed with moisture. They stood unmoving, watching. Some of the women, remembering strands of the old religion, threw down a large brassimip leaf each, as being about the only green stuff freely available. The leaves blew about uncertainly... "

Helliconian religion*

Helliconia

4000

Aldiss, Brian. Helliconia Spring. New York: Atheneum (1982); pg. 317.

"Through all adversity, the generations of humankind slowly grew more civilised. This was markedly so if we consider that the first token of civilisation--without which men cannot live together and desperate anarchy prevails--is sympahy for one's fellows, imaginative warmth for their failings. Now hospitals had come into existence, and doctors, nurses, and priests--all bent onalleviating suffering rather than terminating it brutally. "

Helliconian religion*

Helliconia

4000

Aldiss, Brian. Helliconia Spring. New York: Atheneum (1982); pg. 324.

"The settlement covered a large area... In the centre was a cluster of buildings and stores, together with the pens in which captives were contained. All of these were arranged around the centre-most hub of the settlement, which consisted of a circular church, the Church of Formidable Peace. "

[Year estimated.] "These legends were kept alive by the sayer's guild, members of which stood on every stairway, or waited on terraces, and spun fantastic tales. In this world of nebulous glom, words were like lights.

To one other section of Pannoval, which figured largely in people's whispered discourse, Yuli was not allowed to make his way. That was the Holies. The Holies could be reached by gallery and stair from Market, but it was guarded by the militia, and set apart by repute. No one went voluntarily through its winding approaches. In the Holies lived the militia, forever guarding the law of Pannoval, and the priesthood, forever guarding its soul. " [References to Helliconian religion and culture are throughout the book, of course. Only a few examples are in DB. Novel does not appear to have any explicit references by name to contemporary Earth religions, except one to Hinduism.]

Sataal rose slowly in the small room, and turned about, so that his shoulders loomed black in a distant source of light, and all the rest of him flowed into encompassing shadow. A dull highlight gleamed on his pate as he inclined his head towards Yuli, saying, admonishingly, 'Learning fast, young fellow, then interpretation. After learning, then less difficulty in interpretation. Get everything by heart, you hardly need it by head. Akha never enforces understanding from his people, only obedience.'

'You said that Akha cares nothing for anyone in Pannoval.'

'The important point, Yuli, is that Pannoval cares for Akha. Now then, once again:

"These things Yuli nursed in himself all the while he went through his sessions with Sataal. Outwardly, he was obedient to the priest.

'You are not a fool, even if you are a savage--and that we can change,' said Sataal. 'Soon you shall progress to the next step. For Akha is the god of earth and underground, and you shall understand something of how the earth lives, and we in its veins. These veins are called land-octaves, and no man can be hapy or healthy unless he lives along his own land-octaves. Slowly, you can acquire revelation, Yuli. Maybe, if you are good enough, you could yourself become apriest, and serve Akha in a greater way.'

Yuli kept his mouth shut. It was beyond his ability to tell the priest that he needed no particular attentions from Akha: his whole new way of live in Pannoval was a revelation. "

"Carried along by the surge of humanity, Yuli caught a sudden view ahead of the chamber of Reck, its curved walls flickering with light. He saw a slice of the chamber to begin with, trapped between the veined walls of the passage along which the rabble had to pass. As he moved, so into the framed distant view moved Akha himself, high above the heads of the crowd.

He ceased to listen to what Kyale was saying. Akha's gaze was on him; the monstrous presence of the dark was surely made visible.

Music played in Reck, shrill and stimulating. It played for Akha. There Akha stood, broad and horrible of brow, its large stone eys unseeing yet all-seeing, lit from below by flares. Its lips dripped disdain.

The wilderness held nothing like this. Yuli's knees were weak. A poweful voice inside him, one he scarcely recognized as his own, eclaimed, 'Oh, Akha, at last I believe in you. Yours is the power. Forgive me, let me be your servant!' "

"He recalled the legends he had listened to round his father's fire. The elders had spoken of the two sentinels in the sky, and of how the men of earth had once offended the God of the Skies, whose name was Wutra. So that Wutra had banished the earth from his warmth. NOw the sentinels watched for the hours when Wutra returned, to look again with affection on the earth, and see if the people behaved better. If he found they did, then would he remove the frosts.

Well, Yuli had to acknowledge that his people were savages, just as Sataal claimed; how else would his father have allowed himself to be dragged away by phagors? Yet there must be a germ of truth in the tales. For here in Pannoval was a more reasoned version of the history. Wutra was now merely a minor deity, but he was vengeful, and he was loose in the skies. It was from the skies that peril came. Akha was the great earth god, ruling underground, where it was safe. " [Much more.]

It was the prayer as much as anything which halted Laintal Ay. normally he loved to be in this room, full of his grandmother's mysteries... Father Bondorlonganon produced a little hound and placed it in the boy's palm. It was scarcely longer than the palm. It was carved, as he recognised, out of kaidaw horn, with a wealth of detail which delighted him. Thick coat curled over the hound's back, and the minute paws hd pads...

Father Bondorlonganon squeezed his eyes a little more and enquired Laintal Ay's age...

Next day, Laintal Ay wished to stay close to the priest from Borlien, in case he had more toys hidden in his garments. But the priest was busy visiting the sick, and in any case Loilanun kept firm hold of her son. " [NOT Catholic, but similar terminolgy and description to a Catholic priest. This character mentioned elsewhere.]

Helliconian religion*

Helliconia

4901

Aldiss, Brian W. Helliconia Winter. New York: Atheneum (1985); pg. 5.

"He prayed to God the Azoiaxic that his father knew nothing of his activities with Ondod females, that wickedness he had fallen into shortly before paralysis had overcome him. The Ondods gave what Insil so far refused him.

"Son Luterin,There is a prospect in the days to come that you will be appointed Keeper of the Wheel in my place. That role, as you are aware, combines both secular and religious duties.

When you were born, you were taken to Rivenjk to be blessed by the Priest-Supreme of the Church of the Formidable Peace. I believe this to have fortified the godly side of your nature. You have proved a submissive son in whom I am satisfied. " [Many other references to Helliconian religion throughout novel, most not in DB. Other pages of interest include pg. 29, 31-38, 47, 52-53, 60, 152-163, 220-221, 226-230, etc.]

"The masque was performed in the banqueting hall of the Shokerandit mansion on the eve of Luterin's departure south.

Stately personages in grand costumed enacted preordained roles. A solemn music played. A familiar story was performed telling of innocence and villainy, of the lust to possess, and of the convoluted role of faith in the lives of men. To some characters harm was allotted, to some good. All came under a law greater than their own jurisdiction. The musicians, bent over their strings, emphasized the mathematics which prevailed over relationships. "

"The harmonics of the musicians suggested a cadence of stern compassion, inviting a view of human affairs far beyond the normal acceptances of optimism or pessimism. In the leitmotifs for the woman forced to give herself to a ruler she hated and for the man unable to control his baser passions, musical members of the audience could detect a fatality, a sense that even the most individual characters were indissolubly functions of their environment, just as individual notes formed part of the greater harmony. The stylised acting of the performers reinforced this interpretation.

Some entrances were politely applauded by the audience, others observed without especial pleasure. The actors were well rehearsed... but not all... commanded the same presence as the principals.

Figures of state, figures of noble families, figures of the church, allegorical figures... together with various humours of Love, Evil, Passion, Fear, and Purity, played their parts on the boards... "

"Pannoval had once been not merely a great nation but a great religious power, whose C'Sarr's word held sway over much of the continent and whose neighboring states had sometimes been reduced to satrapy under the sway of Pannovalan ideology. Four hundred and seventy-eight years before the confrontation at Isturiacha, however, the Great God Akhanaba had been destroyed in a now legendary duel. The God had departed from the world in a pillar of fire, taking with him both the then King of Oldorando and the last C'Sarr, Kilandar IX.

Religious belief subsequently splintered into a maze of small creeds. Pannoval, in this present year of 1308, according to the Sibornalese calendar, was known as the Country of a Thousand Cults. As a result, life for its inhabitants had become more uncomfortable, more uncertain. All the minor deities were called upon this hour of crisis, and every man prayed for his own survival. "

"Here came troops from Loraj and Bribahr; tribes from Carcampan and primitive Upper Hazziz, who kept the orifices of their bodies plugged on the march, so that evil spirits from the steppes should not enter them; a holy brigade from Shivenink; shaggy highlanders from Kuj-Juvec; and of course many units from Uskutoshk. All were banded together under the dark-browed, dark-visaged Archpriest-Militant, famed Devit Asperamanka, who in his office united Church and State. "

"It was not courage they lacked, but the favour of their countless gods.

Behind the Pannovalan defeat lay a history of unrest extending over long periods. During the slow deterioration of the climate, as life became harder, the Country of a Thousand Cults was increasingly at odds with itself, with one cult opposed to another.

Only the fanatical corps of Takers had the power to maintain order in Pannoval City. This sworn brotherhood of men lived inside the remotest recesses of the Quzint Mountains. It still clung to the ancient god Akhanaba.

The Takers and their rigid discipline had become a byword over the centuries; their presence on the field might have turned the tide of defeat. But in these troublous times, the Iron Formations judged it best to remain close to home. "

"The trackers looked at each other and then at Custer, still grinning. They were an odd-looking pair; Ubi was tall and long-limbed and very black--Herero, he claimed, with a dash of Zulu and a touch of Hottentot... " [Other refs. to this char., not in DB.]

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